Obama's endangered home-state governors

The Democratic governors running President Barack Obama’s adopted state and childhood home could be headed for embarrassing electoral defeats this year, despite increasingly active assistance from the White House.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn trails Republican businessman Bruce Rauner in recent polls, while Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie is being crushed in sparse polling ahead of this Saturday’s Democratic primary against a little-known state senator, David Ige. And even if Abercrombie wins on Saturday, he starts the race behind Republican Duke Aiona, thanks in part to a third candidate on the ballot.

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Both incumbents could still win reelection, but experts say the fact that they’re struggling — and even trailing — is, in part, a sign of Obama’s waning political influence in his home and native states and proof that presidential endorsements only go so far.

A loss by Quinn, in particular, would be historic. No incumbent governor from the president’s home state and party has lost reelection since 1892 — when livestock breeder Claude Matthews, an Indiana Democrat, won the governorship during the Republican presidency of Benjamin Harrison — according to Eric Ostermeier, a University of Minnesota political researcher. In 16 chances since then, the incumbent has prevailed.

To reverse the momentum, the White House has stepped up on behalf of Quinn and Abercrombie in recent weeks. Obama recorded an unusually personal radio ad for Abercrombie — a lifelong friend — describing the governor as “ohana,” the Hawaiian word for “family.” And at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Chicago last month, first lady Michelle Obama plugged Quinn, saying, “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure he gets over the finish line,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The president — who’s still popular in both states despite lagging ratings nationally — plans to be even more actively involved in both races in the “near future,” according to a source familiar with Obama’s political operation.

Ige, Abercrombie’s vastly outfunded primary opponent — the incumbent outspent him 7-to-1 from July 1-25 — said he’s not sweating the presidential intervention because Obama’s influence in Hawaii has faded.

“I’m disappointed that he chose to [get involved in a competitive primary],” he said. “But I think he gave up his right to vote in Hawaii. He’s not a resident in our community and he doesn’t get a vote in our primary.”

In a state as small as Hawaii, Ige said, face-to-face contact is more valuable than “an endorsement from someone out of state, even the president of the United States.”

That puts Ige on the same page as Aiona, the likely Republican nominee in Hawaii, who led either Democrat and a third candidate, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, in a recent poll.

“Even though the president may still be popular with a lot of people in Hawaii … his policy issues got a lot of pushback,” Aiona, a former lieutenant governor under GOP Gov. Linda Lingle, said in a phone interview. “It’s not as unconditional as it was two, three, four years ago.”

Likewise, in the Land of Lincoln, Rauner aides have been buoyed by recent polls showing their candidate up double digits against Quinn, although Quinn has pointed to other surveys showing a narrower contest.

Jim Edgar, a former Republican governor, said Obama can help Quinn fundraise and drive up the African-American turnout — two critical elements of Quinn’s path to victory — but that his influence in the large state is limited.

“I don’t think Obama’s standing has as much impact on Illinois as other states just because of the nature of Illinois,” he said. Noting Obama’s meteoric rise from the state Senate to the U.S. Senate to the presidency, Edgar said Obama never had much time to build a political machine in his home state.